Les and I found 3 interviews with KaTe on newspaper: the Toronto Sun, the
Toronto Star, and the Hamilton Spectator (courtesy of Les' mom). I'll be typing
in the interviews soon, which seem to have been done with a group of
journalists talking to KaTe all at the same time. However, there are totally
opposite statements reported by different journalists.

Toronto Sun: "I don't think I'd ever tour again", she says,
flatly. "I'd never written the songs [on TRS ] in view of playing them on
stage."

Toronto Star: Advance word had it TRS would see Bush finally treading the
boards again ... with tunes especially written for live performance.

Hamilton Spectator: "I'd like to do some dates at some point for this
record" "Now I've come back to the idea of doing it-- especially over
the last couple of years. If we did do something, I'd like to do something
personal. The idea of standing here and just singing my songs more simply now
appeals to me."

Who do we believe? who do we *want* to believe? :-)

Also a statement to sum up why KaTe is so elusive about answering questions:

Here's the interview from the Toronto Sun. The Sun is almost a tabloid, and
Les tells me he's got a copy with a picture of Kate next to the page 3
scantily-clad Sunshine Girl. This interview is the feature of the Showbiz
section, with the interview printed on a full-page photo of Kate, (10"x15")
in a fruit-print dress as worn in the Eat the Music video. (If anyone is
interested in a colour xerox, email me. The cost would be around $2. Les and I
will probably scan it and post it somewhere.)

Kate Bush weaves a fairy tale

by John Sakamoto

The best fairy tales rarely conform to the "once upon a time/happily
ever after" format.

Take Hans Christian Andersen's 19th-century "bedtime" story, The
Red Shoes. A young girl receives a pair of magical shoes that transform her
into a magnificent dancer. Unfortunately, they won't let her *stop* dancing.
They literally become a part of her body, resisting all attempts at being
removed. Eventually, the girl becomes so desperate, she has her feet chopped
off. Then she dies. The end.

Which brings us to the new Kate Bush album, also titled The Red Shoes. The
initial attraction to the charming story above, Bush is telling a handful of
reporters during a rare in-person interview yesterday, "was the image of
dance, because it is something I've really enjoyed being involved in. But it's
an image you can take to almost any form of art, the idea of being possessed by
one's art. Sometimes *it* controls you rather than *you* controlling it."

"I think that's probably true of every album I make, really," she
says, laughing. "At some point I feel like I'm just being dragged behind
it -though so far I haven't had to actually cut off my feet."

What she did have to do was spend the better part of four years hunkered
down in her home recording studio, which is especially ironic since the idea
was, according to longtime producer Del Palmer, to make the album quickly and
bring out a "live feel" to the music. A number of factors conspired
against that, including a major retooling of the studio, the death of Bush's
mother, and a long-distance "musical penpal" collaboration with
Prince that took two years to wrap up.

While admitting that the idea of doing some shows after the album was
finished "was something I'd been playing with," the 35-year old Bush
says, "I'd never really written the songs in view of playing them on
stage." Does that mean there will, once again, be no tour? "I don't
think I'd ever tour again," she says, flatly. "Though I enjoy
travelling, I don't travel always very *well*. I loved doing the tour we did
before (in 1979), I loved the performances and working with the band and the
dancers ... but I didn't really enjoy the travelling. I do really like the idea
of doing some shows at some point," she adds, emphasizing those last 3
words. "but when we finished the album I got the idea of doing the short
film, and all my energies went into that."

"The short film" is The Line, The Cross and the Curve, Bush's
directorial debut, which received an invite-only screening last night at the
Royal Ontario Museum, its first showing outside of the London Film Festival
last month. (It will likely be released as a home video in the new year.)

Incorporating a series of videos for The Red Shoes, the 50-minute, $ 1
million production features Miranda Richardson and mime artist Lindsey Kemp.
Bush sums up the plot this way. "it's the idea of working in a rehearsal
room with a band, and suddenly this woman appears in the room and tricks me out
of my soul, which is represented by three symbols, and puts me under a spell
which involves the red shows. And for the rest of the film, I have to try to
win back my soul.

"It is," she smiles sweetly, "kind of a fairy tale."

(Side Box)

The Red Shoes: A running account

* 19th century: A short fairy tale about vanity and retribution, written by
Hans Christian Andersen in the mid-1800s.

* 1948: A powerful film, adapted from the fairy tale, by Michael Powell and
Emeric Pressburger. (Available on video, and essential viewing for Kate Bush
fans.) Bush met director Powell a few months before his 1990 death. She writes
about the experience in Moments of Pleasure from the new album.

* 1993: A much-delayed Broadway musical set to open this month. So far, the
original director, the male lead and the lyricist have all been replaced.